Today, a personal computer (PC) user may receive many unwanted or unsolicited email messages, some of which may include file attachments, because the user's email address is widely disseminated, distributed and/or published. Some of the received email messages may contain computer viruses that may destroy files or otherwise cause harm to the user's PC. In an effort to minimize intrusion and harm, many businesses and some individual users set up firewalls that may be utilized to prevent or minimize a likelihood that certain types of email messages will be delivered to their personal computers and/or networks. This may help to prevent email messages that may be infected with computer viruses from being delivered to a personal computer or introduced within a network. However, in general, email addresses and IP addresses associated with a particular networked device may be easily determined and as a result, may be readily distributed. Accordingly, the identity of users and devices are readily ascertained and generally known by other users and devices.
Some users may also extract email addresses from emails such as electronic chain letters that may be sent and received. The extracted email addresses may be utilized to create larger email lists that are utilized to further distribute and disseminate unsolicited and unwanted emails. Moreover, emails that may be sent with attachments may contain scripts or executable code that may be further utilized to extract email addresses and/or IP addresses from remote personal computers and other networked devices. The email addresses may be extracted from address books or mail boxes and the IP address may be extracted from network settings that are stored on the personal computer. Once extracted, the email addresses and IP addresses may be freely distributed and disseminated.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.